Philcon, the oldest local science fiction convention, is hosting this year's festival for speakers and enthusiasts of Lojban, the Logical Language. As early as two months out, attendance was already up for this year. Lojban enthusiasts are coming from all over; from Utah, Alabama, NYC, Michigan, as close as Pennsylvania, and as far away as California.
Matt Arnold (epkat) is sending in a group registration in order to get the group rate of $30 per person for attendance at Philcon. In order to qualify for this rate, the Lojban group must have at least ten people, who must get registration info and payment to Matt no later than Friday, October 27, 2006. Required registration info includes full real name, street address, city, state, zip code, and email. Send this info to matt.mattarn@gmail.com.
Robin Powell (camgusmis) is dealing with the money as a first step, as he has a PayPal Premium account. Paypal $30 to rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org, which must be sent in time to clear by October 27. If you have already sent your payment directly to Matt, there is no need to resend it. (Note the two different email addresses.)
The $30 cost covers only your admission badge to Philcon and jbonunsla, not lodging costs.
In mid-October the Logical Language Group decided to get two hotel rooms at the convention, complimentary to jbonunsla registrants who need it the most. This helps defray the overall costs to active members of the community. We hope it will encourage Lojbanists from nearby areas such as Maryland, New Jersey, or NYC to stay later for our activities and not just make a day trip. Currently the rooms have not filled up. Also, one of our members has offered a guest room in a home 15 minutes from the hotel, to two people who would not mind sharing a bed. Email Matt at matt.mattarn@gmail.com to inform us of your lodging needs and means.
This schedule is tentative and in progress. We still don't know the Philcon schedule in much detail. Suggestions are welcome. We have a function space room for Saturday evening and all of Sunday, and will spend Friday and Saturday morning/afternoon in a public area, possibly the game room. It's a good idea to start off our events in a location that draws attention and attendance from attendees who otherwise would not have known about us. I am going to revise this schedule soon now that I know when we will get a whole room, but have not yet done so.
Penguicon, a combination science fiction convention and open source software expo in the greater Detroit metro area of Michigan, allocated function space for jbonunsla 2006. In its fourth year, Penguicon was held April 21 through 23, 2006 at the Holiday Inn in Livonia, Michigan. See http://www.penguicon.org/ and http://wiki.penguicon.org/ for more information about Penguicon.
My presentation about Lojban at Penguicon 2005 packed the room, and was in demand for a repeat this year. Five local Lojban enthusiasts attended jbonunsla 2006 festivities and were joined by several curious onlookers with many questions. Present were me (Matt Arnold, AKA "epkat" see profile), Thomas Idzikowski (who is interested in teaching Lojban to little Ivy), Shaun Klein, Jennifer Leadbetter, and Bruce Webber.
Instead of getting one of the closed-off function space rooms, jbonunsla had a spacious and relaxing presentation area full of rows of chairs, open to the main public thoroughfare in the hotel. You can see it in the online photo tour. It's beneath the French-Quarter-style balconies, right next to the Holidome where the pool is, and across from the cafe.
More About Penguicon
A past Lojbanist, Eric S. Raymond, never fails to attend Penguicon. Guests of Honor at Penguicon this year included:
Looney Labs, creators of Zendo and Nanofictionary, games which have been played at past Lojban festivals
Chris DiBona, open source director for Google
Frank Hayes, filk musician and tech columnist for ComputerWorld
Steve Miller and Sharon Lee, authors of the Liaden universe novels
Program participants included: Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda of Slashdot, musicians Tom Smith and The Great Luke Ski, SF authors John Scalzi and Karl Schroeder, Tcl/tk guru Clif Flynt, blogger "TheFerrett", web cartoonists Howard Tayler and Rob Balder.
That concerns the Penguicon convention in general, of which jbonunsla was but a part.
The Michigan Lojbanists
Wednesday May 3, 2006, the five of us followed up at my house for the latest meeting of our Lojban group and class that started a year ago. I bought a large whiteboard and we wrote example bridi such as {.i .u'u doi .can. mi pu pinxe lo do ckafi} and {.i doi .epkat. pe'u e'o ga'inai ko dunda lo ckafi mi} and explained them to the newcomers. I provided pizza. We also talked about Java, Lisp, and Python, and played some games.
Our next meeting was Saturday, May 20, 2006, at my house in Redford, just west of Detroit and half an hour away from the University of Michigan.
Future plans include recording an episode of the podcast, conference calling with other Lojbanists, and writing a sketch performance for Penguicon 2007 called "Whose Lisri Is It Anyway?"
As of August 2006, in-person meetings continue to be held every couple of weeks, and show no sign of slowing down.